The Firing Line

On the edge of the road where Hamil sat his horse was an old pump—the last indication of civilisation. He dismounted and tried it, filling his cup with clear sparkling water, neither hot nor cold, and walking through the sand offered it to Shiela Cardross.

"Osceola's font," she nodded, returning from her abstraction; "thank you, I am thirsty." And she drained the cup at her leisure, pausing at moments to look into the west as though the wilderness had already laid its spell upon her.

Then she looked down at Hamil beside her, handing him the cup.

"In-nah-cahpoor?" she asked softly; and as he looked up puzzled and smiling: "I asked you, in Seminole, what is the price I have to pay for your cup of water?"

"A little love," he said quietly—"a very little, Shiela."

"I see!—like this water, neither warm nor cold: nac-ey-tai?—what do you call it?—oh, yes, sisterly affection." She looked down at him with a forced smile. "Uncah" she said, "which in Seminole means 'yes' to your demand.... You don't mind if I relapse into the lake dialect occasionally—do you?—especially when I'm afraid to say it in English." And, gaining confidence, she smiled at him, the faintest hint of tenderness in her eyes. "Neither warm nor cold—Haiee-Kasapi!—like this Indian well, Mr. Hamil; but, like it, very faithful—even when in the arid days to come you turn to drink from sweeter springs."

"Shiela!"

"Oh, no—no!" she breathed, releasing her hands; "you interrupt me; I was thinking ist-ahmah-mahhen—which way we must go. Listen; we leave the road yonder where Gray's green butterfly net is bobbing above the dead grass: in-e-gitskah?—can't you see it? And there are dad and Stent riding in line with that outpost pine—ho-paiee! Mount, my cavalier. And"—in a lower voice—"perhaps you also may hear that voice in the wilderness which cried once to the unwise."

As they rode girth-high through the grass the first enchanting glade opened before them, flanked by palmettos and pines. Gray was galloping about in the woods among swarms of yellow and brown butterflies, swishing his net like a polo mallet, and drawing bridle every now and then to examine some specimen and drop it into the cyanide jar which bulged from his pocket.

"I got a lot of those dog's-head fellows!" he called out to Shiela as she came past with Hamil. "You remember that the white ants got at my other specimens before I could mount them."

"I remember," said Shiela; "don't ride too hard in the sun, dear." But Gray saw something ahead and shook out his bridle, and soon left them in the rear once more, riding through endless glades of green where there was no sound except the creak of leather and the continuous popping of those small pods on the seeds of which quail feed.

"I thought there were no end of gorgeous flowers in the semi-tropics," he said, "but there's almost nothing here except green."

She laughed. "The concentration of bloom in Northern hothouses deceives people. The semi-tropics and the tropics are almost monotonously green except where cultivated gardens exist. There are no masses of flowers anywhere; even the great brilliant blossoms make no show because they are widely scattered. You notice them when you happen to come across them in the woods, they are so brilliant and so rare."

"Are there no fruits—those delectable fruits one reads about?"

"There are bitter wild oranges, sour guavas, eatable beach-grapes and papaws. If you're fond of wild cassava and can prepare it so it won't poison you, you can make an eatable paste. If you like oily cabbage, the top of any palmetto will furnish it. But, my poor friend, there's little here to tempt one's appetite or satisfy one's aesthetic hunger for flowers. Our Northern meadows are far more gorgeous from June to October; and our wild fruits are far more delicious than what one finds growing wild in the tropics."

"But bananas, cocoa-nuts, oranges—"

"All cultivated!"

"Persimmons, mulberries—"

"All cultivated when eatable. Everything palatable in this country is cultivated."

He laughed dejectedly, then, again insistent: "But there are plenty of wild flowering trees!—magnolia, poinciana, china-berry—"

"All set out by mere man," she smiled—"except the magnolias and dog-wood. No, Mr. Hamil, the riotous tropical bloom one reads about is confined to people's gardens. When you come upon jasmine or an orchid in the woods you notice the colour at once in the green monotony. But think how many acres of blue and white and gold one passes in the North with scarcely a glance! The South is beautiful too, in its way; but it is not that way. Yet I care for it even more, perhaps, than I do for the North—"

The calm, even tenor of the speech between them was reassuring her, although it was solving no problems which, deep in her breast, she knew lay latent, ready to quicken at any instant.

All that awaited to be solved; all that threatened between her and her heart and conscience, now lay within her, quiescent for the moment. And it was from moment to moment now that she was living, blindly evading, resolutely putting off what must come after that relentless self-examination which was still before her.

The transport wagon was now in sight ahead; and Bulow, one of the guides, had released a brace of setters, casting them out among the open pines.

Away raced the belled dogs, jingling into the saw-scrub; and Shiela nodded to him to prepare for a shot as she drew her own gun from its boot and loaded, eyes still following the distant dogs.

To and fro raced the setters, tails low, noses up, wheeling, checking, quartering, cutting up acres and acres—a stirring sight!—and more stirring still when the blue-ticked dog, catching the body-scent, slowed down, flag whipping madly, and began to crawl into the wind.

"You and Shiela!" called out Cardross as they trotted up, guns resting on their thighs. "Gray and I'll pick up the singles."

The girl sprang to the ground, gun poised; Hamil followed her, and they walked across the sandy open where scarcely a tuft of dead grass bristled. It seemed impossible that any living creature bigger than an ant could conceal itself on that bare, arid sand stretch, but the ticked dog was standing rigid, nose pointing almost between his forefeet, and the red dog was backing him, tail like a ramrod, right forefoot doubled, jaws a-slaver.

The girl glanced sideways at Hamil mischievously.

"What are we shooting for, Mr. Hamil?"

"Anything you wish," he said, "but it's yours anyway—all I can give. I suppose I'm going to miss."

"No; you mustn't. If you're out of practice remember to let them get well away. And I won't shoot a match with you this time. Shall I flush?"

"I'll put them up. Are you ready?"

"Quite, thank you."

He stepped up beside the ticked dog, halted, took one more step beyond—whir-r-r! and the startled air was filled with wings; and crack! crack! crack-crack! spoke the smokeless powder.

Two quail stopped in mid-air and pitched downward.

"O Lord!" said Hamil, "they're not my birds. Shiela, how could you do such a thing under my very nose and in sight of your relatives and three unfeeling guides!"

"You poor boy'" she said, watching the bevy as he picked up the curious, dark, little Florida quail and displayed them. Then, having marked, she quietly signalled the dogs forward.

"I'm not going," he said; "I've performed sufficiently."

She was not quite sure how much of disappointment lay under his pretence, and rather shyly she suggested that he redeem himself. Gray and his father were walking toward one dog who was now standing; two quail flushed and both fell.

"Come," she said, laying her hand lightly on his arm; "Ticky is pointing and I will have you redeem yourself."

So they went forward, shoulder to shoulder; and three birds jumped and two fell.

"Bravo!" she exclaimed radiantly; "I knew my cavalier after all!"

"You held your fire," he said accusingly.

"Ye-s."

"Why?"

"Because—if you—" She raised her eyes half serious, half mockingly: "Do you think I care for—anything—at your expense?"

A thrill passed through him. "Do you think I mind if you are the better of us, you generous girl?"

"I am not a better shot; I really am not.... Look at these birds—both cocks. Are they not funny—these quaint little black quail of the semi-tropics? We'll need all we can get, too. But now that you are your resistless self again I shall cease to dread the alternative of starvation or a resort to alligator tail."

So with a gay exchange of badinage they took their turns when the dogs rounded up singles; and sometimes he missed shamefully, and sometimes he performed with credit, but she never amended his misses nor did more than match his successes, and he thought that in all his life he had never witnessed more faultless field courtesy than this young girl instinctively displayed. Nothing in the world could have touched him more keenly or convinced him more thoroughly. For it is on the firing line that character shows; a person is what he is in the field—even though he sometimes neglects to live up to it in less vital moments.